


A Dinner wih the Vallakoviches

by Nui (Nuiihren)



Series: Curse of Strahd Shorts Collection [4]
Category: Curse of Strahd - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27722867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nuiihren/pseuds/Nui
Summary: It's a dinner party at the Vallakovich house and Victor has to sit through it.
Series: Curse of Strahd Shorts Collection [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2031067
Kudos: 6





	A Dinner wih the Vallakoviches

“Oh Victor,” his mother exclaimed, “you look absolutely dashing!”

Slowly coming down the stairs and stepping into the hall, Victor felt anything but. Sweaty? Yes. Uncomfortable? Absolutely. Longing for death? More and more with every passing second. But certainly not dashing.

“Doesn’t he look dashing, my love?” his mother continued in her shrill voice, now turning to the looming figure that was his father. “I let the seamstress re-embroider your old doublet, doesn’t it look absolutely darling on him?” 

Victor hated how much she sounded like she wanted to please the man. It was almost as grating as the stuffy doublet with all its ugly embroidery. His father, in the meantime, gave him a cold look of pure displeasure.

“Don’t slump your shoulders like that,” he said. “And don’t embarrass me in front of the guests.”

Victor was ready to walk back to his room right then and there, but the torture was just beginning. Not an hour later he was sitting at the table, sandwiched between his mother and one of the guests, and did his best to focus on the food. If he raised his head, he’d have to look at the Wachters, most notably at his stupid would-be fiancée and her mocking brothers, and so he didn’t. At least not for as long as he could help it.

“And what do you think about it, young man?” Lady Wachter suddenly asked and Victor realised, too late, that she was talking to him.

“W-what?” he mumbled, raising his head after all.

The Wachter brothers visibly smirked. From the corner of his eye Victor could see disdain growing on his father’s face.

“I’m afraid, Victor has no opinions on tax policy,” he said.

“Ah, but who does at his age?” the man sitting next to Victor laughed. “I certainly didn’t. In fact, I barely knew what taxes were back then.”

“I’m sure you’re selling yourself short, Vasili,” Victor’s father answered dryly.

“That’s what he usually does,” Lady Wachter smiled, “always too modest! You should never believe a word he says about himself.”

The man laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Victor shot him a dark glance.

“Oh please, Fiona, stop it!”

“Do you need more wine, dear Fiona?” his mother chimed in, too loud as always.

“But of course…”

The conversation veered off again and Victor sighed in relief. All around him the voices were growing increasingly loud, somewhere on the far end of the table people burst out in drunken laughter. To his father’s utmost displeasure, Victor was sure. He was just starting to hope for escape, a chance to slip away from the table and get back to his room, when the Wachter woman suddenly decided to draw everyone’s attention to him once again.

“Why don’t the children take a walk together?” she said. “Stella would love to see more of your garden, dear Lydia.”

And so the garden it was. Victor walked next to the girl that was to be his bride in grim silence, as she blabbered something incoherent about flower composition. Completely mindless. He tried to imagine himself married to her, having children and ruling Vallaki like his father, and shuddered. He needed to get out before anything like that happened.

“Can I ask you something?” she said after a lot of boring rambling.

He shrugged.

“Can you show me anything more interesting than the garden? I heard your father has a big book collection?”

That wasn’t what Victor had expected to hear.

“Sure…” he said, “I mean… we’re not allowed in there... and you’ll probably find the books boring… but why not.”

Stella didn’t find the library boring. Or maybe she did, but feigned her interest extremely well. 

“Oh, my mother never shows me the best books!” she explained, shuffling through the pages of a thick volume on some foreign history. Her big eyes glittered in candlelight. She was pretty, at least, Victor contemplated. One could say that. 

“My father sometimes gets books on magic, those are the best ones,” he said and then added, to his own surprise: “I learned some spells from them.”

She stared at him in disbelief: “You can do magic?”

“Sure,” he said, trying to sound like it was nothing. “Want to see it?”

He made some sparks appear on his fingertips and felt stupidly proud as she gasped at the sight.

“That’s nothing. I can do a lot more than that.”

She opened her mouth to say something when they heard voices at the door. One belonged to his father, Victor realised. For whatever reason, Stella grabbed his arm, shooting him a panicked glance. 

“I can turn us invisible,” he whispered and felt even prouder as she giggled at that.


End file.
